


100,000 Airplanes

by SerialObsessor (ibelieveinturtles)



Series: WIAD 2008 [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Airplanes, Gen, Time Travel, the rift - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:19:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibelieveinturtles/pseuds/SerialObsessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Gwen get caught by the Rift</p>
            </blockquote>





	100,000 Airplanes

**Author's Note:**

> Theme:  Title Challenge: Use a title of a West Wing episode as your title and the inspiration for your piece.*  
> Added Feature: a coin  
> Word Max: 500 words.  Excluding headers, your story must be 500 words or less.

Gwen edged carefully around the corner of the building, gun held ready at her shoulder. She spoke softly into her earpiece, “Tosh? How much further?”

“You’re almost on top of it.” Tosh replied from her position back at the Hub, “Just a few more meters. Can you see anything?”

“There’s nothing there… oh, hang on.” As Gwen looked on, the air in front of her began to shimmer, and she cautiously took another step towards it. “There’s a kind of flickering just above the ground about ten meters in front of me. Jack, can you see it from where you are?”

Jack was approaching from the other side of the building, “Not yet. Tosh, how are the readings?”

Tosh typed away furiously at her keyboard as she analysed the various signals coming in from the Rift. “It’s getting stronger. Whatever it is it’s big and it’s almost through.” Suddenly alarms began going off and the Rift readings peaked at unbelievable highs. “Something’s happening, you’d better get out of there! The Rift’s going crazy.”

The shimmer in front of Gwen began to writhe and expand, and as she hurriedly backed away from it, she stumbled on a loose brick and fell to the ground. The air in front of her ripped open and the sky lit up with a bright flare of light as she flung her arms up to shield her eyes.

As Gwen climbed to her feet she realised that the scenery had changed dramatically. The buildings were reduced to rubble and she was in a deserted wasteland, ruins all around her. Stunted trees were clinging to life, and a strange droning sound filled the air.

As the droning noise got louder, her attention was drawn to the sky. It was full of airplanes. As far as she could see, from horizon to horizon, thousands of planes filled the sky. As she stared in amazement she was startled by a noise behind her and whirled to see Jack making his way across the shattered ground.

 

 

“Jack! Where are we? What’s happening?” Gwen asked, bordering on hysterical.

Jack looked up at the enormous fleet with a strange look in his eyes. “100,000 airplanes.” he said softly. “The biggest mobilisation of airpower the world has ever seen or will ever see.” He gazed up into the air for a bit longer before meeting Gwen’s eyes. “It almost destroyed the entire planet… Britain was completely obliterated; the Americas were reduced to slag. Europe and Asia were left charred and smoking. Hardly any records survived though, so no one knows why it happened.”

She stared in horror as thousands of bombs began dropping from the planes. “Oh God…”

“Run!” Jack screamed as he checked his wrist device, “We’ve gotta get back to the Rift!”

They raced towards the Rift, the rain of bombs drawing closer, the ground shaking with each hit. With hell behind her, Gwen hit the ground hard, rolled over and breathed a huge sigh of relief at the sight of tall buildings surrounding her, and nothing in the sky except clouds.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the writerinadrawer community at LiveJournal (2008)  
> Round 4  
> I went out in this round as I forgot the added feature. There is an expanded version of this fic that will go up soon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [100,000 Airplanes, V2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826671) by [SerialObsessor (ibelieveinturtles)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibelieveinturtles/pseuds/SerialObsessor)




End file.
